


It's been so long between the words we spoke

by SleepyBanshee



Series: tumblr requested prompts for drabbles and fics [9]
Category: SKAM (Spain)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt, cris loves her Joana immediately but her little 12 year old brain is like: is this friendship, girl next door au, like the gays do when faced with heteronormativity (esp us bi's), literally all of this is build up and then should take place roughly with cannon, mentions of hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 20:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyBanshee/pseuds/SleepyBanshee
Summary: Tumblr Prompt from @/nutmegfromtobin: How about a crisana fic where joana is the new girl that moves in next door. Kind of like the girl next door and shes a complete badass. Cris finds her unbearable only to mask her infatuation with her. Joana finds it funny and likes to give Cris shit. Either they have windows from across each other or they run into each other at school a lot and Cris always notices her arriving home.





	It's been so long between the words we spoke

Cris is twelve when the new girl moves in with her family across the hall. Dani and her press their faces to the door, taking turns looking out the peephole and listening, attempting to guess who the new family is. So far they’ve seen two parental looking figures, before Dani, who’s currently standing looking out their peephole, while Cris’ ear is pressed against the door, says, “bingo.” 

Cris perks up and looks at Dani. “What?” She asks him, pushing him slightly so she can look at what he sees. 

“A girl. Around our age,” he replies, refusing to budge even a little. “She looks badass,” he continues. Cris tries to shove him aside, but he towers over her and weighs probably double. 

“Move over! Let me see,” she demands, but Dani refuses. 

“Hey!” Dani and Cris freeze as their mom yells at them from the living room. “What do you two think you are doing?” She questions and glances between the two. Cris wills her brother to keep his mouth shut. 

She should’ve known better. 

“We were just looking at the new family moving in across the hall,” he spills, and Cris strikes him in the stomach with her elbow. He looks down at her grimacing in pain, but with apologetic eyes. 

“If you have time to spy on our neighbors you have time to help your father clean up or to help me cook, let’s go,” their mom tells them and Dani and Cris both murmur a be right there. Their mom gives them one more meaningful look before walking back to the kitchen. Cris jumps to the door and looks out, but sees nothing. 

“Why did you say she looks like a badass?” She asks Dani. 

“She had green hair,” he says, and Cris’ eyebrows raise at that information. “And a leather jacket,” at that, Cris turns to eye the door again, before she hears her mother yell her name and turns away from the entrance to go towards the kitchen. Her thoughts drift to the cool new girl across the hall for the rest of the night. 

\--  
Despite her best efforts, Cris cannot get a peek at the new girl in the last two weeks since she moved in. She practically lives at their front door, and anytime there is a sound she runs to see if it’s her. Her mom practically forces her to go over and deliver brownies, which she does somewhat happily at a chance to see her, but their daughter, Joana is her name, isn’t at home when she does. 

So, while she has a name, she still doesn’t know who this new girl is or what she looks like. She’s impatient. It’s not as if she thinks that they will immediately be best friends, although Cris is desperate for a female friend closer to home. She’s surrounded by brothers all the time, and Amira often has her own family obligations. But she’s curious about the type of girl around her age who has convinced her parents to not only get her a leather jacket but dye her hair a fun color. Cris could never get away with that. Cris could hardly talk her mom into letting her get a professional manicure three weeks ago, let alone dye her hair a non-natural color. 

When Cris delivered the brownies, she checked to see if her parents were some sort of hippies or something, but they looked pretty normal, much like her own parents. It didn’t add up to her. So, she tries to spy the girl with the green hair next door. It hasn’t happened yet, but Cris is determined. 

It’s another two weeks before she finally gets her first glimpse of Joana. She’s on her way out of the apartment and in a hurry to catch the bus to school. She races down the stairs hitting the second floor when she bumps into something. Cris looks up from the stairs and takes in a girl around her age with chipped black nail polish, a leather jacket that has been modified with pins, and paint, and a low messy bun with streaks of green coming out of it. Cris stares at her. 

“Uh, sorry,” Cris stammers, trying not to stare at her. It’s not like she’s special, but she’s been waiting so long to catch a glimpse. It’s like finally witnessing the loch ness monster. Dani is right, though, she does look badass. Cris looks down at her own oversized workout pants and long sleeve shirt and looks woefully childish in comparison. 

“No problem,” Joana says. Cris should take the answer and continue on her way, so she doesn’t miss the bus, but instead, she holds out her hand. 

“I’m Cris, I think you moved in across the hall from me, the third floor.” She gestures to the floor above them. 

“Joana,” she replies easy, they break their hands away from each other. They stand on the stairs for a beat looking at each other before Cris realizes her mom will have her ass if she doesn’t catch the bus. 

“Gotta run! Nice to meet you,” Cris shouts out as she continues her mad descent down the stairs and out of their apartment building. She doesn’t look back, and she doesn’t think anything particularly earth-shattering changes from finally meeting Joana, but there had been something in her eyes when they met that made Cris curious to get to know the cool girl, Joana, with the striking green hair. 

_A little over two years later:_

Cris looks at her agenda and notes that it’s been officially seven weeks since she has seen Joana, it’s the longest she has gone. After their initial meeting, they were friendly neighbors, but that’s all. They shared small smiles in the hallway, pleasantries, nothing more. But there was a comfort in that, and she never stopped to realize how much she relied on seeing Joana. 

But it’s seven weeks, and the smiles are gone. No sightings of green hair. No leather jackets. No bracelets or shared looks that offered comfort and familiarity. Cris is officially worried. Actually, Cris has been worried for six weeks, but she’s not sure what to do. She isn’t the responsible one, the planner, or the one who people look up to. She’s not a leader. And she’s always been okay with that, but now she thinks about the fact that seven weeks ago was the last time she saw Joana, who was a constant in her life for two years. She feels wildly inadequate. But she also knows she has to do something. Because even though they aren’t friends, and even though Cris really doesn’t know Joana, she still misses her. It’s something she should think about later, why this matters so much, but that’s for future Cris to figure out. Now, she just needs to woman up and figure out what’s going on. 

She puts down her school books on the side of her bed and gets up to throw on leggings. She makes sure her she has her phone before walking out of her room into the kitchen through the living room and past her front door towards the door across the hall. She rolls onto her heels and raises her hand to knock before she lowers it again. She shifts her weight and glances behind her at her door before moving to knock. 

“Fuck it,” she thinks and knocks on the door. 

Joana’s mom, a slender kind woman dressed in a suit with straight dark hair pulled halfway up, opens the door and Cris feels infinitely stupid for being here, but now it’s too late. 

“Uh, hi, I’m sorry to bother you,” Crist starts and resists the urge to roll her eyes at herself. “But I’m Cris, I live across the hall,” she stupidly explains. 

“Yes, dear. I know who you are,” Joana’s mom smiles kindly. Cris feels less on edge. 

“Right, but, uh, I was just wondering if Joana was okay. I haven’t seen her in a while,” It was longer than a while, Cris thinks, but she’s really committed to this nonchalance act. Joana’s mom freezes in the doorway, Cris waits but gets no reply, no anything. 

Okay. Weird. 

“So, is she okay...or?” Cris questions again. This seems to snap Joana’s mom out of whatever freeze she was in. Her smile that had been pasted on during the beginning of their encounter dims, and Cris feels a weight land in the pit of her stomach. 

“That’s very kind of you, Cris,” Cris notes that while she finally answered, it wasn’t any of the information that Cris had asked for. She waits. 

This is super fucking weird, Cris thinks. 

“She’s okay, relatively. She’s had a few health problems and is in the hospital, but she’ll be coming home within the week.” Cris feels the pit in her stomach grow. She’s not sure what to say. She wants to push for more information, but the tension is palpable, and even if she had more information, she wouldn’t know what to do with it. 

“Oh, okay. Well, thanks. I’m glad she’s okay,” Cris finally replies, taking a step back to make a quick exit back to her apartment. 

“I’ll let her know you were asking about her,” Joana’s mom says, pulling the door so it is almost closed. 

“Oh, well that's-- you don’t have to do that,” Cris says, feeling infinitely stupid for coming over here. “Thanks, I’ll see you around.” Cris waves awkwardly before turning around and ducking back into the comfort of her own home. 

Cris grabs a drink from the fridge, a wrinkle in her forehead as she moves back to her room, she sits on her bed and pulls her computer onto her lap. She takes a drink before putting the bottle on the side table and opens a tab on her computer, her agenda and school books still surrounding her spot on the bed. The tab is empty, and Cris’ hands hover over the keyboard. 

She presses her fingers into the keys and types into the Google search bar, “why would someone stay in a hospital for 2 months.” 

Oh good, Cris notes sarcastically, only 244,000 results. Easy. 

She looks through the first two and notices words like compromised immune system, cancer, schizophrenia before she closes her laptop and leans her head back against the wall. 

Helpless is not a feeling Cris enjoys. She turns on her music and gets back to studying. There’s nothing else she can do. 

Cris sees Joana for the first time in almost eight weeks as she arrives back from school. She’s walking up the stairs and hears yelling coming from her floor. Cris walks more slowly, hoping to give whoever is yelling space. The last thing she wants is to become an unwanted participant in the yelling match. She can’t quite hear what they are fighting about, but she continues to slow on the stairs until she hears the slamming of a door. 

Cris arrives on her floor and sees Joana leaning against the door of her apartment before she crumples to the ground. Her head is down in her hands, and Cris can see the hospital bracelet on her wrist along with a few of the regular bracelets that Joana wears. Cris pauses between her own apartment and Joana’s folded form, unsure. 

She doesn’t know Joana well enough to offer the type of support she might need. Cris feels dumb and helpless--again. But she also knows she needs to do something, anything. 

So she shrugs off her backpack and walks over to Joana’s form. She notes that Joana still hasn’t moved, but Cris doesn’t need her to. She sits next to her--close enough that she can feel the warmth from Joana’s body, but not quite touching. She sits with her knees up, her hands resting on the top of them and her back and head leaning against Joana’s door. Cris is not sure how long she sits there before Joana finally lifts her head from her hands. Her face pale, dark circles under her eyes, her eyes are red, but she’s not actively crying, so Cris takes that as a win. 

Joana moves her body to mirror how Cris is sitting, and they rest against the door awhile longer. Neither of them speaking. It’s the surest Cris has felt in a while that she is doing the right thing. This moment of silence with this girl who apparently means enough about Cris for her to worry, a lot, but a girl she still doesn’t know. 

She wants to know more and isn’t that interesting. And not just because Cris is friends with almost everyone, or easy-going, or the party girl, even at fourteen. But because if she did know more, maybe she could help her in these situations. But for now, she’s content to sit quietly at the door. Even Cris understands how difficult it is to be alone. 

Cris assumes it’s about thirty minutes later when she feels soft fingers trailing on her arm. She rolls her head to look at Joana who, Cris is happy to note, looks better. More like the badass girl with the green hair and the leather jacket that she first met. Joana is skimming her fingers down her forearm and stops at her wrist. Cris holds out her hand slightly, unsure. It’s alarming what Joana’s touch does, and she takes a moment to thank whatever god is out there that her arm doesn’t break out in goosebumps. 

Joana tangles her fingers in with Cris’ holding their hands and resting them in the space between their bodies. Cris squeezes slightly, again, offering the only support she can think of. 

“Thank you,” Joana says, looking at Cris with a weighty gaze. Cris makes herself sit still, but really she feels like squirming. She can’t read the look in Joana’s eyes, but it’s heavy and loaded. 

“Girl, It’s nothing,” Cris responds, shrugging her shoulders, their fingers still intertwined between them. 

“My mom said you asked about me,” Joana whispers with the smallest smirk. Cris narrows her eyes slightly at the smug tone. 

“Don’t be too flattered,” Cris says as she rolls her eyes and turns her head away from Joana to keep her from seeing the small smile Cris fights. “I was worried your hair dye finally caused brain damage and I was hoping to steal your leather jacket.” 

Joana’s face lights up. “Oh, so it had nothing to do with my well-being?” 

“No,” Cris confirms. “I was only after your jacket. But I couldn’t just tell your mom that.” 

Joana chuckles, “Hi, I haven’t seen your daughter lately, and you look sad, can I have her leather jacket?” 

“See, that would’ve never worked. I had to be stealthy about it.” 

“Well, I’m sorry you went through all that trouble for a jacket just to find out it’s still being used,” Joana teases softly. 

“Aye, that’s okay. It looks good on you anyways.” 

Joana clears her throat, “It’s too much sometimes--the world. My brain can’t keep quiet,” the words are whispered so softly that Cris wonders if she hears them correctly. God, Cris thinks, she needs Amira for this conversation. Cris has never excelled at comforting someone. 

But she tries anyway. 

“Yeah,” Cris nods. “I get like that sometimes too.” Cris smiles over at Joana who still looks lost in thought. Like her brain, at this very moment, won’t stop to give her a reprieve. It hurts Cris a little that she can’t do anything about it. “That’s why I always have my music up so loud. Drowns out my brain pretty well,” Cris teases. 

Joana smiles at that, coming back to reality a bit, and Cris considers that a positive sign, even as she feels woefully unhelpful. 

“That’s good advice,” Joana says. 

“Well, I’m very wise, you know.” Cris teases before sobering. “Maybe--,” she starts before swallowing and continuing suddenly very aware of the closeness of their bodies, the hand grasped in hers that feels like a lifeline for both of them. “Maybe it’s not about shutting out the world or drowning out the thoughts though,” Cris confesses. “Maybe it’s just that you find people who can be quiet with you, so the world and the thoughts don’t overwhelm you at the same time.” 

“Like now?” Joana questions and Cris' chest warms at the thought that she might be a person who can help Joana when her thoughts overwhelm her. 

“If that’s what happened, then yes. Like now.” Cris confirms. 

It’s quiet between them again for a few minutes, but this time, Cris feels comfortable in silence. Like her presence alone are doing more than she thought possible when she first slid down to sit next to Joana. Cris looks across the hall to her door and wonders at the time. She wasn’t exactly interested in her parents catching her sitting outside the apartment holding hands with Joana. 

“Better?” Cris asks. Joana nods and gently rubs a few circles on Cris’ hand before releasing it. 

“I guess I’ll see you around?” Cris asks as she stands, pulling her bag up with her. 

Joana stands as well looking lost for a second before nodding. “Yeah,” she replies as she pulls her thumb near her mouth and starts biting her nails. 

Cris gives her one more look before she crosses the hall and enters her own apartment. 

Joana’s back. 

_A little over two years later:_

Cris thinks she’s going crazy. She saw a flash of a dark jacket and purple hair, and she could’ve sworn she saw Joana at her school. It took the better part of the break to remind herself that Joana left, she moved to Argentina weeks after they had sat outside Joana’s apartment door together. 

It hurt when she left, and it hurt more that she had no way of contacting her. All she was left with was a note that said thank you and goodbye. 

It shouldn’t have hurt that badly, but for some reason it did. 

_You know why_ Cris’ brain tells her, _she was hot and you liked her_. But those are thoughts better left untouched. 

“Cris? Cris?” Cris snaps out of her daze and looks at Amira standing next to her. “Where’d you go?” She asks. 

“Nowhere, girl, sorry. Did everyone else go?” She somehow missed Viri and Nora leaving the courtyard to go back to class. 

“Yeah,” Amira tells her, her brows furrowing in concern. “You sure you’re okay?” 

“Amira, I’m fine! I just thought I saw someone I used to know,” Cris says, rolling her eyes and jumping off the top of the table. Cris grabs her backpack and slings it over her shoulders, throwing an arm around Amira as they head back to the front of the school. 

They walk into school together talking about birthday gifts for Viri before breaking apart, and Cris walks to English still feeling off. Of course, the universe really loves to fuck with Cris, which is why as she walks into her English classroom, she runs straight into someone. Not someone. Joana. Her Joana. 

Oh fuck. 

Cris's eyebrows raise slightly and a blush forms on her cheeks. 

“Hi,” Joana says as she shifts her feet from side to side. 

Cris is still frozen in the doorway. Unseeing. Because if she was actually seeing correctly that would mean Joana - girl next door Joana - was in her English class. 

“Ah, good,” Pedro says, coming to the doorway next to Cris and Joana which effectively confirms that Cris is in fact still in touch with reality. “I see you have met each other, but just in case. Joana, this is Cris. Cris, Joana.” Pedro reaches out to them as if Cris is supposed to immediately know what’s going on. 

“What?” Cris says stupidly. Joana looks...nervous, and Cris can’t help but note the changes in her. Her hair is longer and no longer a bright green, but rather a purple color that goes well with her complexion. Her leather jacket is gone and in its place is a dark denim jacket. The bracelets are still in place, and so is Joana’s nervous habits, Cris notes. But, she’s grown up, in much the same way Cris herself has. 

Pedro waits a beat as both Joana and Cris stare dumbly at each other. “Okay, well, the class is starting, ladies. So go take your seats,” he tells them ushering them out of the door. 

Cris sits in her usual spot, and Joana sits down next to her, the only empty spot available. Ah, so that’s why Pedro introduced them specifically. Great, not only is Joana suddenly in her life again, but they were now paired together in Pedro’s class and for their English assignment. 

Fuck, Cris thinks. 

Cris pretends to listen to Pedro, in fact, she looks more invested in this class period than any other time in English, but she doesn’t actually hear a word Pedro, or the class says. Instead, she thinks back to the last time she sat in silence next to Joana. How different they both were, and yet, Cris feels much the same as she had at 14--unsure, helpless, confused, and nervous. But the anticipation kind of nerves, those damn butterflies that come out whenever Cris saw Joana growing up. 

There are differences, though. Now she’s mad. Mad that Joana just left without letting her know what happened. Mad that Joana didn’t find her to tell her she’s back. She’s mad that any of that makes her mad. It’s not like they were anything before she left. Joana did not owe her anything then or now. 

Cris is about ready to ask to go to the bathroom to have five minutes to freak out when she notices Joana slide a paper towards her on the desk. 

She looks at it, pulling it closer to her. 

It’s a drawing of her and Joana sitting next to each other against Joana’s old apartment door. Joana’s drawn them as little cartoons. It’s remarkably well done, and Cris hates Joana just a little for making her heart race at the cartoon past versions of them and the little hearts she’s put in Joana’s eyes. Cris looks at the bottom of the page and sees a cursive scribble underneath the drawing: I’ve missed you. 

Cris toys with either tearing up the paper that made her traitorous heart beat faster or asking Joana to sign it so she can frame it. She captured so much in so little time, and she’s wowed by Joana’s talent. 

She’s always been wowed by Joana ever since she first caught sight of her on the stairs four years ago. 

Instead, she folds the paper carefully and puts it in her journal before taking out a clean sheet of paper. Her pen hovers for a second unsure what to put. Everything seems inadequate. 

_I missed you too. _

_Where have you been? _

_Why did you leave? _

_Are you okay? _

_What the fuck? _

_You look good. _

_I can’t believe your back. _

_Why do I want you?_

Instead, Cris finally writes: _Meet up after school?_

It might be better, after all, to ask these questions in person, or to give herself some time to think through every thought running through her head. 

She slides the paper over to Joana who scribbles back. Cris tries to pay attention to class, she’s gonna regret the lack of notes later, but she can’t focus on anything but Joana, and keeping her cheeks from blushing. 

The paper hits her arm, and Cris quickly slides it in front of her looking at the now-familiar script from Joana. It reads: meet me in the courtyard when school lets out? 

Cris nods slightly before writing a yes on the paper before sliding it back over. 

Relief floods Cris. At least she might not run away again, or rather, at least she’ll get to talk to her a little before Joana runs away. 

Cris doesn’t know why Joana left, or why she was in the hospital, or why she’s back. She doesn’t see how this beautiful girl with the tortured eyes and the lovely smile has wormed her way so much under her skin. But, somehow, inexplicably, Cris knows that this time she’ll make sure she has dug into Joana’s skin the same way. She wants to know everything about the girl next to her--the girl who lived next door to her. 

Pedro continues on about their assignment in the background. Cris only vaguely listens as she thinks about the enigma that is Joana. 

Cris is jolted from her Joana filled thoughts when she feels a spark at her hand that rests on the table near her body. She looks down and sees Joana’s fingertips slowly skimming her hand and forearm--just as she had in the hallway years ago. 

And for the first time, Cris realizes maybe she has already gotten under Joana’s skin. 

Maybe, for whatever reason, they were meant to orbit each other. 

This time goosebumps do arise on Cris’ body, but now she’s not afraid of her reaction. 

She’s excited.

**Author's Note:**

> So the fic is a little less teasing - window jumping - ideal girl next door AU and a little more angst + longing AU. Whoops. I hope you still enjoy! Thanks for the ask! I had fun writing this. Baby Cris is wise even at a tiny age, though she doesn't feel like it. 
> 
> Song title by Florence + the Machine's "Long and Lost" 
> 
> Thanks to @/nnegan for taking a look and providing emotional support. A+ emotional support writer. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr: https://air-bison-yip-yip.tumblr.com/
> 
> Hope you all enjoy,  
-SleepyBanshee


End file.
